The Sun's Gift
by Karis Artemisia Judith
Summary: Set a year after 'Looking Back'. Anna wakes up alone, but this time without fear. [part of the continuing, collaborative 'Coming Home' series-you can find a link to the whole series in my profile]


Anna stretched sleepily, reaching out for her husband, but the bed beside her was empty. A month ago she would have felt a twinge of panic, of the deep seated fear that one day she would wake up and find him gone. No matter how often he promised to stay (and he promised every night, with his lips against her ear) or how much she wanted to believe him-_did_ believe him, with her whole heart—the fear lingered, and gave her dreams about him leaving again, about him never coming home in the first place. Pregnancy had given her especially vivid dreams, and Kristoff had learned not to leave the bedroom until she was awake and had seen him.

Things had changed in the last few weeks, however. Anna was getting used to waking up alone, but the fear was kept at bay by the knowledge that she'd still find her husband close by. She got up and padded to the door. The hallway was dim, only hazily lit by the early dawn light that was filtering through the big window over the stairs, but it was enough for her to make out Kristoff. Anna leaned against the doorframe and watched him walk softly up and down the carpet, his attention completely captured by the tiny bundle of blankets in his arms. She let him pace back and forth a few more times, a smile tugging at her lips, before she left the doorway and went to slip an arm around his waist. He bent carefully to kiss her temple without disturbing the little sleeper cuddled against him.

"What are you doing up? You should be resting."

"So should you." Anna poked him gently and stood on tiptoe to peer at his burden. "Kristoff, she's sound asleep. You can put her back in her bassinet, you know, she'll be fine."

He shrugged guiltily. "I know, I just…" He looked down at the baby, shifting her a little so that she was tucked more securely against his shoulder. "Do I have to?" he asked softly.

Anna shook her head, reached up to lay her hand against his stubble-roughened cheek. Her thumb brushed the dark circle under his eye. He was always the one to get up with the baby, bringing her to Anna for feeding, or changing and soothing her himself while Anna slept. Partly it was to make up for his absence the last time, she knew, but Anna thought there was a little more to it than that. "You have to sleep too, you know."

"I'm okay. Really. I—she's so _small_."

She leaned her head against his arm, looking at the soft, round face of their daughter. He always protested that the baby was small when someone suggested that he put her down for a moment. He seemed to think it was a valid argument. It was almost the first thing he'd said on the day that she was born, when the midwife had cheerfully announced that the damp, squalling bundle was a girl and laid her on Anna's chest. _Almost_.

The first thing he'd actually said about their daughter was "Is she alright? Is she…is she supposed to be that color?"

"She perfect," the midwife had said disapprovingly. She had objected to the presence of a man during the birth, until Elsa put her foot down.

"I _know_ she is," Kristoff snapped anxiously. "But is she _okay_?"

"She's fine," Anna told him. "See? Just fine." She smiled up at him, really looking at him for the first time in hours—he'd been sitting behind her, supporting her, and looking at him now made her heart turn over. Kristoff was pale, his hair dark with sweat and rumpled up across his head. There were red marks on his forearm where she vaguely remembering holding on to him during the labor pains-her nails had left crescent shaped indentations. But it was the look on his face that made her draw in a sharp breath and bite her lip. A year ago she'd seen that look, when he saw his son for the first time, when he held his daughter (his firstborn daughter, Anna corrected herself). But then it had been mingled with grief and guilt. Those emotions were still lingering, she thought, but they were superseded by a soft, tender wonder. He lifted a hand to delicately touch the baby's damp, downy head with fingers that trembled.

"She's so small," he whispered.

Anna snorted. "She didn't seem that small to me," she said. He bent down to kiss her, his arm curling warm around her shoulders, but the midwife's bustling only allowed for the briefest touch of lips. The baby still needed to be washed, and the afterbirth dealt with. Kristoff's eyes darkened with anxiety when the midwife's assistant took charge of the baby, lifting her from Anna's arms.

"Go with her," Anna said. "It's okay." She made a face at him. "You don't want to see this part anyway. Elsa was nearly sick last time."

"I was not," her sister said. She'd sat quietly at the bedside, leaving room for Anna and Kristoff to focus on each other (as much as Anna could focus on anything except the waves of pain and the determination to make it all _stop_). Anna exchanged a glance with her, holding out a hand, and Elsa nodded as she took it, accepting the grateful squeeze of Anna's fingers.

Anna glanced back to Kristoff and nudged him. "Go on," she said.

Finally everything was clean—the soiled bedding was carried away and the bed remade, Anna was subjected to a sponge bath (and found herself feeling too tired to object, especially after she was dressed in a fresh nightdress and back in bed), and the baby had been washed and neatly swaddled and the midwife had put her back in Anna's arms. She was chubby and soft, with a determined little nose and a thick down of soft hair. Elsa stroked a finger over it.

"You looked just like this," she said. "She's going to have your hair."

"Mmm," Anna hummed happily, nuzzling at the baby's cheek. "Hello, sweetheart," she said.

Elsa touched her arm lightly, and Anna looked up, then her eyes followed her sister's glance. Kristoff was hovering near the bed, looking a little lost, an unconscious, uncertain smile playing over his lips. His eyes were wet.

"I'll leave you alone," Elsa murmured. "I'll come back and see my niece some more after you've rested." Anna leaned into her hug, since her own arms were occupied, and then Elsa gathered up the midwives and servants with a glance (one of her most impressive queenly skills, Anna thought) and had everyone herded out in moments. Kristoff didn't even seem to notice, until Anna reached out to him. He took her hand and let her tug him down onto the bed beside her, finally coming out of his reverie.

"Kristoff?"

"I love you," he said hastily, blurting it out the way someone does when they've just remembered something important. He winced, then reached out to cup her cheek and said it again, more slowly. "I love you."

"I know." She turned her head to kiss his palm, smiling, then looked down. "What do you think of her?"

"She's beautiful. She's perfect, Anna."

She grinned up at him. "Here."

He looked down at her outstretched arms, at the little swaddled bundle. He reached out as slowly and carefully as if the baby was a bird that might be startled away, and very, very gently lifted her into his hands, cradling her in the crook of his arm. "She so small," he said again. "Were the twins ever this small?"

"They were smaller," Anna said. She could feel tears starting in her eyes and she blinked. She wanted to keep looking at Kristoff's face, at the delicate way he brushed his fingers over the baby's cheek as if he wasn't sure she was real. "I think that twins are usually smaller than other babies. You would have been able to hold Beata in one hand, she was so tiny." She bit her lip as she saw his head bow, his eyes squeezing shut for a moment.

"I wish I'd been here." He bent to kiss the baby's head softly. Anna didn't say anything—they'd both said all they needed to say about the past, by then—but she moved closer to rest her head against his arm.

"You should name her," she said. "Since I got to choose last time. It's…it's your turn. Have you been thinking about it?"

"I…a little," he admitted. "And Elsa gave me a book about names, and their meanings. The trolls believe that names are important, that they should mean something. I thought maybe…" He hesitated, looking down and absent mindedly rocking a little as the baby squirmed. "I thought maybe Sunniva. It means 'the gift of the sun.'"

"Sunniva," Anna repeated. "I liked it." She reached out to stroke her daughter's head. "It matches her hair."

"Really it matches you," Kristoff mumbled, blushing.

"Wait, what?" Anna stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"You," he said quietly. "You're my sun. My light. And she—" He looked down at the baby, smiling helplessly at her. "She's a gift," he said finally.

Anna had moved to kiss him so fiercely that it jostled Sunniva and made her wail in protest, much to Kristoff's alarm.

But now their little gift was sleeping soundly and drooling contentedly on her father's shirt. Anna shook her head and took her husband's arm to tow him into the bedroom. She climbed into the center of the bed and held out her arms.

"Let me have her."

Kristoff handed the infant off, careful not to wake her, and Anna nodded to the bed. For all he insisted that he didn't need sleep, Kristoff still let out a weary sigh when he leaned back against the pillows. Anna scooted close to his side and laid the baby on his chest, his arm coming up automatically to curl around her. His other arm wrapped around Anna as she tucked herself in against his shoulder, her hand reaching out to rest over his on their daughter's back.

"See? Now you can rest _and _hold both of us."

He only sighed in response, a faint, contented hum in the back of his throat, his arm tightening around her. Anna yawned. In an hour they would probably have to wake up again, because a certain little tyrant would be hungry, and very likely they'd be invaded by two little early birds who had recently discovered that they were tall enough to reach doorknobs, which meant that they tended to show up and demand to be shown 'Baby Soon'va'. Anna hadn't had the heart to lock them out. Yet.

"Kristoff?"

"Mm?"

"Why do you want to hold her all the time?"

"Because she's so small," he mumbled. "Because I'm afraid she'll disappear, like a soap bubble. I have to keep her safe. And make sure she's real."

Anna nodded understandingly against his shoulder and snuggled closer. "That's what I thought."

She fell asleep, in spite of the beam of sunlight that had found its way between the curtains to fall across the bed, making Sunniva's hair shimmer like a soft halo.


End file.
